Vijay Prashad: In the Progressive Caucus there was unanimity in the critique, but some hesitation over the way ahead. A few people felt that the far right was dangerous, and it seemed unsafe to unhinge what appeared to be Obama’s walkover in 2012.

Anthony Samad: Diane Watson had to be dragged, kicking and screaming the whole way, to the right side of history. And now she’s serving the first African American President and part of a Congress that passed universal health care, something she worked her whole life for in the California legislature and something seven Presidents couldn’t do.

Sikivu Hutchinson: Standing jubilantly before his subjects like a schlubby cartoon potentate, Newt Gingrich, the GOP’s resident court jester/sage/adulterer extraordinaire, declared Obama to be the most “radical” president in U.S. history at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Reveling in the event’s torch passing pageantry, the audience lapped up Gingrich’s tirade against the “secular socialist” Obama machine. Coming on the heels of Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s racist paean to Confederate pride (in which Southern honor was smote in a zip-a-dee-doo-da world without slavery or slaves), the conference issued another call to arms.

Anthony Asadullah Samad: People got mad love for Diane Watson, and she’s not one that we were going to let go the way of Dymally. She was going to go out on her terms. Nobody was going to force her out. But I, for one, am glad she did it right. It shows that black leaders can effectively ensure quality future leaders will continue their work.

To be rendered invisible and unworthy of consideration by men who look like our fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles and the best of who we are – heroes like El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King, Jr. – is beyond offensive.

The Arizona route 10 highway always enchants me and mesmerizes me with its profusion of cactus and glorious sunsets. Driving back to Los Angeles from a weekend in Tucson, I decided to make a rest stop at a Yuma coffee shop. The coffee shop was filled with a combination of truck drivers, weary tourists and […]

The Body Politic

Dave Zirin: She is our Jordan. She is our Jim Brown. She is our Babe Ruth, calling his shots. She is no longer content to dodge bullets, but understands how to stop them. Serena is that rare athlete who has not only mastered her sport. She’s harnessed it.